Enterprise News | TechCrunch

Meta hires Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead new business AI group

Maxwell Zeff — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 20:33:07 +0000

Meta hired Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new organization building AI tools for businesses that use Meta’s apps to reach consumers, according to a LinkedIn post from Shih on Tuesday. Meta confirmed the appointment and the new Business AI group in a statement to TechCrunch. “I’m thrilled to share today that […]

GitHub launches $1.25M open source fund with a focus on security

Paul Sawers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:32:02 +0000

The open source funding problem is very real, but a slew of initiatives have emerged of late, with startups, corporations, and venture capitalists launching various programs to support some of the most critical projects via equity-free financing. Today it’s GitHub’s turn, launching the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund with an initial commitment of $1.25 million […]

Database startup Neo4j embraces AI to supercharge growth

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:59:38 +0000

To make AI possible, you need to create connections between vast quantities of data. That’s where tech like graph databases come into play. Graph databases handle fast-changing, interconnected data more adeptly than traditional databases, which were designed to store rigidly structured information. Of course, graph databases need to be managed in order to be useful. […]

Microsoft built a PC that can’t run local apps

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:47 +0000

Prefer to offload all your Windows tasks to the cloud? Microsoft may just have the compact, desk-bound computer for you. On Tuesday at Microsoft Ignite 2024, the tech giant unveiled Windows 365 Link, a fanless, lightweight PC that connects to Windows 365. Windows 365 is a cloud-hosted, virtual Windows machine — like a typical Windows […]

Microsoft will soon let you clone your voice for Teams meetings

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:19 +0000

Microsoft plans to let Teams users clone their voices so they can have their sound-alikes speak to others in meetings in different languages. At Microsoft Ignite 2024 on Tuesday, the company revealed Interpreter in Teams, a tool for Microsoft Teams that delivers “real-time, speech-to-speech” interpretation capabilities. Starting in early 2025, people using Teams for meetings […]

Microsoft to launch new custom chips for data processing, security

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:05 +0000

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed new custom chips aimed at powering workloads on its Azure cloud and bolstering security, particularly a new hardware accelerator that can manage data processing, networking, and storage-related tasks. The Azure Boost DPU is Microsoft’s first data processing unit, designed for “data-centric workloads with high efficiency and low power,” the company said. […]

Microsoft beefs up Windows security with new recovery and patching features

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:02 +0000

In the aftermath of the devastating CrowdStrike outage this July, Microsoft vowed to do better even though it insisted that the event was an aberration. Evidently unwilling to take chances (or risk further hits to its credibility), the company on Tuesday, during Microsoft Ignite 2024, shared how it’s making changes to Windows to prevent similar […]

Microsoft brings together its enterprise AI offerings in the Azure AI Foundry

Frederic Lardinois — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:00 +0000

At its annual Ignite conference, Microsoft on Tuesday announced the Azure AI Foundry, a new offering that brings together a number of Microsoft’s existing AI services for enterprises under a single umbrella. Azure AI Studio, Microsoft’s hub for building generative AI-based applications, is the management console and portal for the AI Foundry. “Business leaders are […]

Microsoft and Atom Computing will launch a commercial quantum computer in 2025

Frederic Lardinois — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:30:00 +0000

Quantum computing is getting there. After years of slow but steady development to create a useful quantum computer that can outperform classical machines, we’re still squarely in the “noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.” However, many of the pieces needed for building more advanced — and stable — machines are starting to fall into place now. At […]

Spectro Cloud nets $75M to help companies manage their Kubernetes installations

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:57 +0000

Kubernetes, the open source system that helps manage containerized applications (software packages that run in isolated environments), long ago breached the mainstream. According to one recent poll, 60% of organizations have adopted Kubernetes, and Gartner estimates that more than 90% of all enterprises could run Kubernetes in production by 2026. But Kubernetes itself remains difficult […]

Selector automatically spots IT issues and recommends fixes

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:18 +0000

AIOps, short for “artificial intelligence in operations,” is a process that uses AI to automate IT tasks. More organizations are embracing it as AI commodifies, yet adoption is still lagging. According to a recent IDC survey, almost half of companies said that they were just getting started in AIOps, while a third indicated they had […]

Lightyear is on a mission to modernize network procurement

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Dennis Thankachan isn’t someone you’d expect would launch a digital procurement startup. After college, Thankachan went to work for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. Two years later, he left for a hedge fund, PointState Capital, where he helped to manage equity investing. At PointState, which specializes in telecommunications, Thankachan said he encountered an unexpected […]

Workbrew makes open source package manager Homebrew enterprise-friendly

Paul Sawers — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 12:56:00 +0000

Workbrew emerges from stealth with the mission of mitigating the risks of "shadow IT" practices around Homebrew package manager deployments.

Justice Department reportedly pushing Google to spin off Chrome

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 23:41:46 +0000

The Department of Justice is reportedly pushing to force Google to spin off its Chrome browser business. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reports that the Justice Department is also planning to recommend to a federal judge that Google face antitrust requirements related to AI and its Android mobile operating system. The enforcement actions are the […]

Gadget lover Marc Benioff says his favorite gadget these days is his cars and trucks

Julie Bort — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 18:03:56 +0000

Marc Benioff famously got into tech as a child coder writing games. He’s always loved tech gadgets. During an episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, when asked about his latest gadgets, he showed off his Oura ring. But then he considered and said that his favorite gadget these days is his car. “I think my car […]

Mistral unveils new AI models and chat features

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:03:02 +0000

French AI startup Mistral has released a slew of updates to its product portfolio as it looks to stay competitive in the cutthroat AI space. Mistral’s Le Chat chatbot platform can now search the web — with citations in line, a la OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s also gained a “canvas” tool along the lines of ChatGPT […]

Twenty is building an open source alternative to Salesforce

Romain Dillet — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

If a software product is successful enough, you’ll probably be able to find a company building an open source alternative. And yet, nobody has created a modern open source CRM product that can be considered as a serious competitor to Salesforce. That’s exactly what Twenty is trying to achieve. For the past couple of years, […]

SuperAnnotate helps companies manage their AI datasets

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

SuperAnnotate, a platform for managing and prepping AI training data sets, has raised a new round of capital.

Text marketing firm Blip secures backing from SoftBank, Microsoft

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 12:00:16 +0000

Take Blip, a conversational marketing platform, has raised $60 million in funding from SoftBank and Microsoft.

Juna.ai wants to use AI agents to make factories more energy-efficient

Paul Sawers — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 10:19:18 +0000

Juna.ai wants to help factories become more efficient by automating complex industrial processes using AI agents.